


The Ragnarok Effect

by LazarusLiszet



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Asgardian slurs, Avenger Loki (Marvel), BAMF Loki (Marvel), Bottom Loki (Marvel), Canon-Typical Violence, Crown Prince Loki, Eventual Loki/Tony Stark, Fantastic PTSD, Fantastic Racism, Fix-It, Good Loki (Marvel), HUGE Canon Divergence, He's not smart either, Intersex Loki (Marvel), Loki is messed up, Loki needs help, M/M, Mentions of Suicidal Actions, Minor Character Death, Not as in good as in fantasy, Panic Attacks, Past Rape/Non-con, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Ragnarok cycles, Rating May Change, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, Thor (Marvel) is Not Stupid, Visions, Yggdrasil - Freeform, he tries, mentions of rape/non con
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-15
Updated: 2018-08-21
Packaged: 2019-06-27 19:36:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15692016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LazarusLiszet/pseuds/LazarusLiszet
Summary: The universe is cyclical. Some, very rarely, can see these cycles. Have the branches of Yggsdrasil woven into their very veins. Most go mad.Loki, as a child, showed a stunning afifnity for magic, so much so that it needed chanelling. He develops abilities that Odin All-Father, and his father before him, and the father before that have all displayed. He world walks. He shapeshifts. He has a sharp tongue and sharper wit.Loki is the Crown Prince of Asgard, the lost Prince of Jotunhiemr. And he has to fix the universe before it all goes wrong. Along the way he meets Tony Stark and the Avengers, making tenuous friendships as he sets out to defeat Thanos.





	1. I: Thor, Part One

Cover Illustration [Here](https://flic.kr/p/2a947iT) (Done by yours truly)

Spotify Playlist is The Ragnarok Effect by Ilya

 

//This is the next Ragnorak cycle after the current Marvel-verse. Loki is around the equivalent of four when he goes to them about magic, and about ten when they go to Nidavellir, around 15 when they announce the crown prince. Loki's armor is a hybrid of his dark world armor and his ragnorak set//

  
Once, Eitri was visited by Odin-King, All-Father. As the King of Dwarves, Eitri was not surprised that the Asgardian king wanted a weapon to befit the kingdom of warriors for his crown prince. But he did not come just for the goddess of death or Thor, the child foretold by the Norns to wield lightning and rend tides. He also came for the foretold second son, the one the Norns said would see the threads of the web of fate and walk the branches of Yggsdrasil.

For the foretold first born, Hela, a hammer is made, a mighty Hammer named Mjolnir, forged to both create and destroy. For the second the Stormbreaker mold is made, an axe to conduct the electricity in the sons very bone marrow. And for the third there are three, each lesser in nature but otherworldly and equal when used as one. The first is the boots, enchanted with Alfheim's magic to guide a walker of the branches. The second is Jormungandr, a metal serpent which melds with skin and moves of its own volition in the shape of a snake, grounding one to the seidr of the realms. The third is the mold of Evermore, which never misses and changes shape in the same matter as its intended wielder.

Eitri was impressed by the Norns' plans, though he did not tell Odin who each weapon was for. Or that the youngest would, by Yggsdrasil's hands, be the most powerful Seidor wielder in the known universe.

Odin left with Mjolnir, promising to come back for the others when his children were born.

 

  
Eitri is nothing if not surprised when Odin comes to him with two young children flanking him. "Loki, what did I say about touching?" He rumbles with a touch of exasperated fondness.

"But-- Father! Look, the mechanisms within--" Loki has his small fingertips splayed across the edge of a dwarven mold, curly black hair bouncing, green eyes sparkling in wonder. Both children reach just to Odin's waist. Eitri eyes him with interest.

"You did not mention that your child was so wound into Yggsdrasil." 'Already' he does not say, because these children probably know little of their own destiny. His train of thought is cut off as Loki yanks his hand away from the mold as if burned and backs up frantically, suddenly looking close to tears. He runs his back into Odin, who frowns and lays a hand on his shoulder.

"Loki has the sight," Odin says, quietly, as Thor watches people hammer steel into submission and Loki stands rooted to the spot, green eyes wide and face blank with years of practice. Years he has not had. "He sees the cycles, and... Myself and my wife would like something he can channel it to. So that he may have some semblance of normalcy."

"Aye? Let us walk. I shall need to know about his most troublesome feats." The king of the dwarves says, even though he knows just the thing already. It was forged centuries before the child's birth, and Odin, with the mind of a king, has perhaps forgotten the three gifts of the youngest child. He prompts Odin to tell him of Loki's plight.

Odin remembers well when Loki had come to them about it. He had always been a troubled child, even as a Toddler he would scream in his sleep, a litany of pleas that made no sense for a thirty-year-old who had yet to see battle. Loki had come to Frigga in the night, a mere toddler, and said 'I watched you die. And it was my fault' with tears cooling on his cheeks. He had chilled Frigga with the details he recalled from such a dream.

He explains to the man how, after being beaten and bruised by one of Thor's playmates, he had accidentally thrown the child through the wall of the courtyard without touching him. How, as shown moments ago, touching certain objects brings him less than pleasant memories. How he sometimes faints from the amount of magic built within him. How he accidentally shows people memories by touch.

"That is much talent for a child to bear. Of course, we have the Stormbreaker and Evermore, but those are for men." He rumbles as he searches for Jormungandr. It would be ill-advised to lecture Odin on not remembering that he had indeed commissioned more for one child than the other two.

"I--"

"Come this way, child." Loki stares up at the dwarf, green eyes wary, and then nods with all the decorum of a five-hundred-year-old. He steps forward and watches the huge man take his hand, uncurling his fingers and setting a small silver snake into his hand. The scales on its back turn black as it touches his hand, its eyes a molten, coherent gold. It winds its way up his wrist and flicks out a metallic green tongue for a moment, its hiss like the cooling of molten metal. Like the Destroyer.

He stares at it, captivated by its lifelike movement and real feeling scales. He hears Eitri talking to Odin as he watches the snake move and wind further up his shirt, smiling as it finds its head under his sleeve and wiggles in distress at the darkness. It finds its way back out within good time, flicking its tongue in annoyance.

"It will keep him from touching things which trigger the memories, at least until he is older, and ground his magic so it has somewhere to go."

"My thanks, Eitri." Odin rumbles.

  
***

  
It is much later when Loki next sees Eitri, four hundred years pass. And it is an accident which triggers it.

Loki is pouring over a tome in the library when Thor comes in. Mjolnir is in his grip and sweat makes him smell. "Yes, Thor?" Loki asks, pushing his hair back and looking to Thor with raised brows. Thor's eyes linger on Jormungandr for a moment, the snake curled around Loki's neck, sleeping soundly. It has grown with Loki, no longer a palm full but nearly as long as Loki's forearm.

"Father would like to see us train," Thor says, sounding a little less than pleased. Loki has somehow managed to carve a spot for himself into Asgards heart, arguing loudly and soundly for the recognition of Seidr in the battlefield. People have listened, and while Loki gets much more backlash for it than he should, having mead poured on him and people spitting at his feet is not uncommon, it has worked. Now, Loki hardly looses more than he wins with Thor. They are an even match.

"Alright." He says, less than pleased. He shuts his book and standing, stretching his arms over his head and walking to his wardrobe. "Are you just going to watch me get dressed, Thor?"

"Nay." He says, turning on heel but not leaving the room. There was a time when neither minded, as brothers shouldn't. But Loki is not normal, and Thor had come to realize it would be just as weird to watch your sister undress as it would to watch Loki do it. Both are aware of Loki's heritage and on accident of all things. Loki, as a child, had been infinitely curious, and still is. He'd touched a jotunn relic, not the casket but a golden band. It had triggered one of those memories Thor does not understand. The fallout had been infinitely horrible.

(Loki, asking Odin numbly, 'Why hasn't it done it?' To his confused stare he added, quietly, 'I'm a frost giant...an enemy of Asgard.' Being told that his brother had tried to end his life was terrifying.)

Now, they know that Jotnar are hermaphrodites, and while as children they did not understand it, (and thor still feels odd about it, because Loki is not a woman, he does not have breasts or curves of any sort) as soon as they hit a more mature age Loki had taken to dressing by himself, shy of his body like no Æs man is. There is a rustling of fabric and the clicking of the metal buttons on his brothers' boots.

"Alright, I'm decent." He says, dryly, like it is a joke. Thor still does not understand Loki's humor, and they are nearly adults. Nearly men. He turns and finds Loki clasping a wide belt around his tunic, one of the ones currently in fashion with Æs and Vanir men, leather lacing in the front and metal clasps at the sides.

"We're training." He says, deadpanned, stressing the second word. "Not strutting down the marketplace, Loki."

"It keeps your spine straight to ease the use of Seidr. You can breathe correctly this way."

"Not that you need assistance, you sit straighter than Mother does."

"Ah, the student surpasses the teacher," Frigga says from the doorway, smiling at them. "Go, your father is waiting." Loki snatches his weapons from his wall and follows Thor out. Recently he has been dabbling in daggers.

It's on the training grounds that things go awry. Loki was late in growing, and now he is still ever so slightly coltish in his movements. He is fighting Sif, and they always give more effort to each other than they do others. Instead of being friends for their similar politics they became rivals, and now Sif has swung her sword in a powerful arc she expected Loki to dodge, but he staggers. He watches the horror grow on Sif's face, realization that she will have royal blood on her hands--

And then nothing. No sight, so sound, and then a thousand strands of color which make him pale. "What...?" He whispers, but his voice sounds different, echoing and chiming, wind like, and... He is standing on darkness, but the golden outline of something almost wood-like is beneath his feet.

His breath quickens, and he remembers, of course, his mothers' warnings of world-walking. Her talks about it being dangerous and fatal, and for someone much older than he. Odin had told him the same, though less gently. Odin himself is a world walker.

And suddenly there is a hand on his arm, and there is light and sound and color again-- he lets out a stuttering breath. Someone is talking but it sounds as though it's from underwater. There are stares, from Sif most of all, pale and drawn and nearly terrified.

"...oki! Loki!" Odin, hands on his shoulders, and he gasps softly.

"I-- I'm sorry. I... By the norns above--"

"I would be awestruck by your ability if it wasn't in such a dire circumstance," Odin tells him, helping him to his feet.

"How?" Sif interrupts. "How did you do that? It was like the Bifrost!" He doesn't know if she's angry or impressed. Then there is an abrupt burst of murmurs and whispers, and Loki ducks his head at the attention. It's alright when he plans to have the attention on him, yes, but not this odd accusatory one.

"Silence!" Odin bellows, the entire courtyard falling obediently silent. "I will be taking my son to the healing wing, and tonight we will celebrate the addition of another world walker to Asgards ranks!" Awed silence follows this, replacing the fear of Odin's wrath. Loki sees Thor's face, red with indignation. He knows well enough that Thor had planned to show his readiness and talent for kingship today. These training sessions in front of Odin's court were to decide who the crown prince would be.

Thor may be the eldest but Loki's magical affinity and political and strategic talent have him in the running. He may not be a front-leading warrior but he is sharp and cunning, and with many of the talents of Odin despite his physique being the opposite. Thor is the golden child still, but he is feeling challenged. And Loki truly doesn't want the throne anyways. It would be an infinitesimal burden to his studies and travels.

Odin never takes his hand from Loki's shoulder as they approach the healing wards. "I am very truly sorry, Father. I understand the risks of such magic." He says, solemn. Jormungandr coils tighter around his neck, awoken by the disturbance, and channels the magic created by Loki's subtle panic into the ground beneath their feet. He strokes the serpents head gently.

"That magic saved your life today, Loki," Odin says, a spark in his eye that makes Loki feel uncomfortable. "Very few possess the ability to world walk." He tells him, softly. "To tread the branches of Yggsdrasil is perilous work, but Yggsdrasil has saved your life many times, including today. We had our suspicions about your abilities, of course."

These long speeches usually lead to wonderous news, but now Loki feels ice in his blood, swallowing thickly.

"You not only wield so much Seidr that you must have a familiar to channel it--" Jormungandr wriggles at the praise, poking out his forked tongue, "but you shapeshift as well and now you can walk the world tree. You must understand how Asgard will react to this."

Loki swallows again, letting out a stuttering breath. Odin, as a child, had needed familiars, the Ravens. He walked worlds and shapeshifted... He was cunning in tongue. Though Loki may not look at all like Odin, they had turned out very similar. Except...

"I am not your blood." He whispers, shifting his weight, trying to escape this sentence. He does not want kingship, he cannot, will not betray his brother like that.

"Loki, the crown does not choose the next heir on blood alone. Thor is arrogant. He is brash. I love him as much as I do you, and you know that myself and your mother do both have our favorites." This is a fact, and not disputed by Loki or Thor, as they have favorites as well. "But he is not ready to be King."

"And I do not want to be King!" Loki says, chokes, hands shaking with pent-up emotion.

"It would not restrict your goals. If anything Thor would be your general, and you could pull the strings by keeping an illusion here in your stead. If they're solid you will have no trouble." Odin knows his son yearns to travel and learn everything he can manage, to live his life wandering the branches from realm to realm and beyond even that. He did too, once.

"Yes, of course it does." Loki chokes. "And I would not argue if I didn't think it would crush Thor into a million pieces to be denied his right."

"You were both born to be kings," Odin says, softly. Loki takes in a sharp breath and looks away. Telling the masses they are going to the healers has just been a pretext. To get away and offer this news of grandeur.

"I was born to die." Loki reflects to him, repeats words from a different Odin from a different time, a different universe. Odin wraps his arms around his child.

"You will not say such things. In time you will come to see reason, my son." Loki stiffens, eyes wide, and feels a couple of tears fall. From frustration or guilt, he does not know. "On the morrow, we will go to Nidavellir, and you will receive Evermore and a pair of world walkers boots from Alfhiem. I will give the news a fortnight from now."

  
***

  
Thor knows that tonight the Crown Prince will be announced. He knows, of course, that he should be getting lectures and congratulations from his parents. He gets none of this. He is a thousand while Loki is nine hundred. Should it not be his right to be the Crown Prince? He is the elder. He is not Ergi.

(Norns, that is ugly and unkind and vulgar, but it is true.)

He hardly has any doubts. After all, Asgard values warriors as kings, and Loki is a mage. A seidrmador with little talent for war. He is also not Odin's blood.

"Brother." A soft-spoken voice says from the door. Loki stands there in his ceremonial armor, a helm piece with horns stretching back over his head, not a complete helmet, allowing his curling, shoulder length black hair to fall around his shoulder blades and collarbones. The leather battlecoat is pleated near the edges and cinched at the waist, accentuating Loki's lithe figure rather than making him broader like his old armor had. The gold half circle pressed into his chest piece is the same, the leather weaving together beneath it. The green and gold have always been Loki's color, and Jormungandr is coiled loosely around his neck in a vague parody of a torque.

"Loki." He rumbles. Loki winces, looking away.

"Am I not your brother?" He asks, looking pained as he watches Thor's face soften.

"You are, of course you are. I just feel rather odd. Should father not be lecturing me?"

Actually, Loki had just gotten released from Odin's study. He feels terrible hiding this from Thor. But hopefully, he won't take it too hard.

"Perhaps he wants it to be a surprise for you?" Loki asks with a weary smile.

"Aye, perhaps." He shifts his shoulders, crimson cape fluttering a bit. His large, tan biceps flex, bare as they are in his armor. The wings on his helm seem odd to Loki's eyes.

"Thor?" He asks as the man picks up Mjolnir.

"Yes, brother?"

"Never doubt that I love you. No matter what happens today."

"Of course... I love you as well, brother." And then they are out the door and into a hallway.

The entrance is different for the both of them. Thor's is grand and boisterous, he roars to the crowd, Mjolnir raised, as he strides down the aisle. Proud and excited. Loki's is more laid back, strolling out with an easy grace and confidence that he doesn't feel, though he may nudge Jormungandr into rearing and snapping his jaws at the crowd, drawing gasps and awe nonetheless. They both come to be kneeling before the Throne.

"Today, we celebrate the coming of age of both of my sons. Thor, my firstborn, God of Thunder, wielder of the mighty hammer Mjolnir, with a strength to surpass all others." There is a roaring applause from the crowd at Thor's gesture. "And Loki, god of seidr, silver tongue, the wielder of the powerful blade Evermore, and a walker of the branches of Yggsdrasil." The cheering is less loud but no less enthusiastic, without Loki so much as twitching.

"Today, one of you will be named crown prince of Asgard, realm eternal." The warriors three and lady Sif stand on the Dias steps along with Frigga. They look nervous.

"Both of my sons are of good heart and head. But one possesses the same skills that have led Asgards Kings to success time and time again. Strategy, sanctity of mind, and charisma are all things a man of politics must possess. He has already changed Asgard for the better without a crown to see his voice is heard and has handled the consequences admirably." Thor's face has gone an odd blotchy color, and Loki stays perfectly still, eyes downcast. "He has the same talents as me, and my father before me, the same cool-headedness of your Queen. Loki, please rise."

Loki is only halfway to standing when Thor's resolve shatters. He opens his mouth to roar something unseemly. It is only a look that silences him, from both Odin and his mother. It is a look they both know well, one that promises words will be spoken, later. "Remember that this title is by no means set in stone, that you are not trapped to this duty. Remember that there are thousands of millions of peoples fates and hopes weighing on the shoulders of a king, and that he must not be too patient, that he must take action eventually. And, that you may still not become king. The race is over, though the journey has just begun." He taps Loki's left shoulder with Gungnir and then taps the butt of it to the ground, creating a great ringing sound.

The cheers are booming, raucous and they nearly make his ears ring. Sif and the warriors three are looking at him with something akin to contempt.

Later, he hears Thor screaming and follows the noise to the dining hall. He gets there just in time, standing mere paces away when Thor bellows, "WHY, WHY LET AN ERGI ONTO THE THRONE OF ASGARD?!"

It makes his heart drop to his feet, steals the breath from his lungs. That ugly, vulgar word could be cause for imprisonment if a commoner said such a thing to him. He must've made some sort of noise because father and mother are looking at him. Thor turns around, face still red with thawing rage, dawning horror and guilt as he realizes. Realizes that Loki has heard such a thing. Loki has ceased talking to him for a year for using that word on someone else. Let alone himself.

Loki swings his hand forward and slaps thor so hard the sound bounces off the walls before he has time to think about it. A handprint-shaped bruise blooms on his brother's perfect golden cheek and Loki feels nauseous.

"Brother--"

"You are no brother of mine." Loki whispers, hoarse and disgusted. He flees, slamming the door behind him and running. A ragged, choked sob tears itself from his throat the moment he enters his chambers, sliding down the door as his knees buckle beneath him. All his life his talents have saved him from the surface of that ugliness. Though he has experienced cruelty and belittlement at the hands of others. Once he had been forced upon by a man simply because of such things because he is Ergi and therefore must be some dirty harlot whore. His only child came out of that--that rape, and Svaldifair was executed for such a thing. Sleipnir was adopted by Volstagg because he was much too young to care for a child at the time, still is too young. The word cuts him so deeply for that reason and others. And it is one thing for a stranger to say it. It is another entirely for his brother to say it.

It is much later, when Loki has gone studying in Vanahiem for six years, that he finds the strength to forgive Thor.

It comes in the form of Sigyn Freyrson, who is also adopted. He is quiet but firm in his opinions and beliefs, without the ability to be swayed by the opinions of others. They become fast friends and then much more, and Loki comes back engaged, and with the mindset to forgive his older brother.

Thor apologizes frantically when he gets home, and is surprisingly alright with the prospect of Loki marrying a man. They don't talk about his title.

  
***

  
Loki stares into the mirror with a twisted expression as Frigga puts simple Asgardian style braiding into his black hair. His hands won't stop trembling and he picks at the hem of his tunic to distract himself. "I am unspeakably proud of you, Loki," Frigga tells him as she pulls the braid tight and ties it off. Most of his hair is still down, loose and curly as he's come to accept it. She squeezes his shoulders. His eyes have darkness under them from hours upon hours of studies, reading law books cover to cover (again, for he had done it already many years ago) until he knows their codex like the back of his hand, as well as that of Vanaheim and Jotunheim and Alfheim and-- his breathing is stuttering and Frigga is frowning worriedly. The floodgate opens, and he laughs a bit too brokenly as his anxiety mounts and turns into tears. Pathetic.

"I do not want this." He says, quietly. "I--I still do not want this..."

"The best of kings are the ones that understand the burden they're undertaking." She tells him, softly, sweetly, smiling at him as she wipes away his tears. Gods, he is not five hundred anymore, what is he doing? He's a thousand and four hundred years old, for gods' sake! "Do not be ashamed of tears, Loki. It happens to the best of us." She tells him as if reading his mind, and he laughs softly.

"I suppose it does." He murmurs, having caught a sparkling wetness in the corner of her own eyes, from the vanity mirror.

"You cannot blame a mother for being proud." She admonishes, grinning. The rest of the morning goes rather smoothly, and Loki watches blankly as his mother helps him fasten various hard to reach clasps and buckles. Odin had offered, of course. It is tradition. But Loki had called for his mother instead, because it is the same dilemma he has in the bathhouse, in dressing rooms and restrooms-- He is neither a woman nor a man. Or sometimes one or the other. This is his true body, though, aside from his being Æs it is how he was born.

He tugs on the boots from Alfhiem, tucks Eviirmore into its sheath, and lets Jormungandr settle himself as he pleases.

"Stunning, Loki." She tells him as she settles his helm onto his head.

"I can do that myself." He tells her, exasperated but helplessly fond. He watches in bemusement as Jormungandr's scales seem to flip, turning to a vivid gold. His newly green eyes blink up at Loki and he wiggles as if telling him, 'Look! I match!' He rolls his eyes.

"So, how should I do this?" He asks her.

"This is your coronation. I trust you'll figure something out." She tells him coyly. He turns to head to the grand hall but finds Frigga stopping him. She murmurs something and Loki smiles at the familiar feeling of his mothers magic.

"You were looking a little worn." She tells him with a smile. Loki watches her go with a small smile, stood by a brazier, looking for someone he doesn't expect to find. He does, though. Thor steps forth from his wing with a grin that is entirely false. Thor, after all, isn't the god of lies, out of the two of them.

"Nice feathers," Loki tells him, grinning.

"You don't really want to start this again, do you, cow?"

"I was being sincere!" He exclaims, a laugh in his tone.

"You're incapable of sincerity," Thor tells him, and something of their banter is off, swinging crookedly on its hinges like a rusted signboard, and Loki bites his lip.

"Am I?" He asks, all sense of jest gone, something wary lingering on his fair features. He looks Thor in the eye.

"Of course not. Of course-- I... I am sorry, brother. I have looked forward to today for as long as you, and I might envy you, but never doubt that I love you." Loki cannot help but think that was very put to together, and wonders for a moment if his brother has somehow developed an ability to lie.

"Thank you." He says. There is a beat, and Thor puts his heavy, calloused hand on Loki's shoulder.

"Now give us a kiss," Loki says, laughing as his shoulder is shoved away.

"Stop," Thor tells him, the lilt in his tone saying that Loki has successfully broken the tension. He adjusts the leather holding his golden shoulder plate in place, jostling Jormungandr, who hisses at him in annoyance.

"How do I look?" Loki asks.

"Like a King," Thor tells him, and Loki feels a bit of sting at the forlornness in his tone. A ceremonial horn blares, making them both tense. "It's time." He says.

"You go ahead." Thor gives him a knowing glance. "I'll be along. You go."

  
Loki decides to make his entrance by world walking, which... it's something he's taken these last hundred years perfecting. Apparently it looks quite spectacular. The Bifrost on a smaller, more concentrated scale. Sigyn stands below Thor and his mother on the Dias steps, Sif with the warriors three on the other. Loki's steps are all careful, measured grace built over centuries, and Jormungandr flashes his golden fangs at the crowd. The patterning beneath his feet, white gold etched into its darker sister tone, is rather beautiful, and it seems to the eye to slowly be filled with a deep evergreen color as he walks, the banners melting into a similar color. The changes are subtle enough that Odin pays them no mind. He feels pride at the fact that he had not been too loud. People howl and cheer as he so often hears done for Thor, and he almost wants to back out, glancing at his brothers forlorn, yearning expression. There is something ugly there too, thunderous, viscous jealousy that Thor so scarcely displays. He kneels, sets his helm beside him, and keeps his steady gaze on Odin. His eyes flick once to Sigyn, who gives him a discreet encouraging smile.

"Loki, Odinson... My heir. My second born." Thor's face has more of that awfulness in it. Jealousy. Hate. He feels guilt twist inside of him. "So long entrusted with the mighty blade Eviirmore, forged in the heart of a dying star, it's power has no equal, as a blade to sever or an instrument to weave the threads of nirn. It is a fit companion for a King." Frigga and Loki share a glance before her attention moves to Thor, who is looking at Odin oddly. Mjolnir is on his hip, and he is grasping its handle. As if slighted. "I have defended Asgard, and the innocent people across the Nine Realms for many years. The time has come that that duty be pressed onward."

Below them, in the depths of the vault of Asgard, a disturbance brews. Loki feels it in the threads of the web of fate, feels it in the branches of Yggsdrasil which twine with his veins.

"Do you swear to guide and guard the Nine Realms?" Odin rumbles, and Loki answers automatically despite his distraction, despite the growing dread within his gut.

"I swear." He says, expressive green eyes met with Odin's blue.

He feels it as well.

"And do you swear to keep the peace?"

"I swear," Loki says.

"Do you swear to cast aside all selfish ambition, and to pledge yourself only to the good of the realm?"

"I swear," Loki says, emphatically, with more vehemence than he intends. His fingers twitch as the unrest within the vault grows.

"And on this day, I, Odin All-Father, proclaim you--"

"Frost Giants," Loki says, somehow in sync with Odin, eyes wide, the left golden with the Seidr he was born with, looking onto the threads weaving their fate with fear and dread. Odin had looked into the direction of the vault but now meets his eye.

Below, in the vault, three frost giants jog purposefully towards the casket of Ancient Winters.

Above them, Odin slams Gungnir into the ground, the destroyer unleashing itself and mowing down each of them in a molten blaze of light.

Loki flinches as each thread severs, breathing harsh, the left side of his face like pins and needles from such a vision.

"With me, the both of you." Odin beckons and they both follow, the coronation erupted into unsalvagable chaos. Something Loki would delight in, had it not left him with such a heavy burden on his mind. Three strands of fate cut before their time. What has done this? Or who, rather? They stride into the vault with purpose, and Loki skims his fingers over the thawing ice, looking for memories.

"The Jotnar must pay for what they've done!" Thor says, voice as thunderous as his title.

"They have paid, with their lives. The destroyer has done its job. All is well." Odin says, calmly, his expression displaying his distaste for such action.

"All is well?! If the frost giants had stolen but one of these relics--"

"But they didn't," Odin says, firm and true. Loki eyes this situation, helm absent and still numbly avoiding the sight of a frost giants arm lying mangled on the floor. That could be his arm, in a different universe.

"I want to know WHY--"

"Without the Casket, Jotunheimr will wither and die in time," Loki says, near a whisper, grim-faced and still as stone. Neither hears him.

"The Casket of Ancient Winters belonged to the Jotnar. They believe it their birthright." Loki stiffens, indignant. Even now he feels the whining cries of Jotunheimr, pleading for its heart. It's a faint echo, in his distance from his own planet and culture. He does not correct Odin, though. That is for another time.

"And if you did not take it from them they would have destroyed all of the Nine Realms."

That sounds akin to racism. Loki feels as though they've forgotten he's here. Forgotten he's been on the envoy of diplomats to Jotunheimr, that he's a Jotun himself.

"I have a truce with Laufey, their king."

'My father.' Loki thinks, absently.

"He just broke your truce!" Thor exclaims.

"And what action would you take?" Odin says, rounding on him.

"March into Jotunheim as you once did, teach them a lesson, break their spirits so they'll never dare try to cross our borders again!"

"You think only as a Warrior!" The argument is growing heated and Loki no longer wants to be here. It's as if Thor is Crown Prince, not him. Pig-headed and idiotic and selfish, with none of the temperement of a King.

"This was an act of war!"

"It was an act of but a few, doomed to fail."

Loki feels a dissonance beneath his feet, a chasm which should not be beneath them. Perhaps there is a reason behind Odin's nonchalance. A false vault?

"Look how far they got!" Thor is crimson in the face, and Loki takes a step back.

"We will find the breach in our defenses. It will be found, and it will be sealed."

"As King of Asgard--"

"You are NOT King!" Odin roars. "And I sincerely you never will be, for the sake of the Nine Realms." He snarls, pushed to his limit. "What would you do, Loki?"

"A diplomatic envoy. Speak with Laufey to make sure his people are in check. And negotiate the terms of the caskets return." Both of them, angry as they still are, go very still.

"And why would it be returned after such an attempt?" Odin asks, not angry with him but suddenly very cautious. Thor looks once again livid.

"The Jotnar are desperate. Their world is desolate and growing more and more bare by the day. They'll be wiped out in less than one lifetime if the casket is not returned." Loki averts his eyes and moves forward, skimming his fingers over the caskets surface. They turn a deep cobalt, the color sinking into his skin. He swallows thickly.

"How do you know this?" Thor spits, somehow accusing him of something. Bringing them here, perhaps. Loki's eyes lock with Thor's and the great, hulking man that is his brother seems to deflate a little.

"On the diplomatic envoy... perhaps a century ago? Half of one? I stepped onto Jotunhiemr and felt its disconnect of Yggsdrasil." Thor is not listening, stubborn as he is. He still thinks storming forward is the right option. Loki watches him sneer.

"You and your tricks." He snarls, storming out of the room with all the grace of a ranpid bilgesnipe. Odin eyes him curiously before leaving as well. Loki hangs his head, feeling lost.

  
Later, Loki is sitting with Sigyn in the gardens, back against the Vanir's chest and the man's legs bracketing him. Sigyn kisses his hair and says, in a soft murmur, "You predict something."

"Yes," Loki says, dryly. "It doesn't take a genius to realize that Thor will be traipsing in Jotunhiemr. He will kill people, and start a war. And I will suffer for it."

"Must you go with him?"

"I will try to prevent too much damage."

"You underestimate yourself," Sigyn tells him hugging him close and kissing his temple.

"Should I go with him, then?" Loki asks.

"Yes," Frigga says as she comes out from-- well, he doesn't really know. His mother is an enigma at times.

"Can you not stop him, Mother?"

"Some things are fate. You know this more than me." She says to him before once again taking her leave. Loki lays his head back against Sigyn's shoulder with a weary sigh. Sigyn combs strong fingers through his black locks and kisses him again.

"And hence we ruin our future." Loki deadpans as he stands, his quirky sarcasm jolting a smile out of Sigyn.

"We will be kings, soon." He says to Loki. The young god hums half-heartedly.

"You are excited, then?"

"I am always excited to be your crutch." Loki looks at him sharply and he smiles, spreading his hands.

"What is a consort if not someone you can lean on in hard times? You are not alone, Loki. Never."

"I know." He murmurs, emerald green eyes flicking from Sigyn's own to the man's lips, and back. Sigyn kisses him deeply, stealing his breath and gripping his hip and shoulder with iron-strong hands, rough with work and battle.

"Come back to me, will you?" Sigyn tells him as Loki tries to find his breath, hands still gripping his neck.

"Can't imagine letting you down, Sig." Sigyn grins at him as he straightens his coat and strides off towards the palace.

  
Thor has flipped over the long dining table by the time he arrives, and Sif and the warriors are standing about. He overhears Volstagg mourning the loss of the food that had sat on the banquet table as he moves calmly towards his brother. "It is unwise to be in my company right now, brother."

"Who said I was wise?" Loki asks him softly, frowning at Thor who is so angry these days, so misguided.

"Oh, I don't know. Everyone in the Nine, maybe?" Thor snaps, and then quickly deflates, as if the air had been punched out of him. "This was to be your day of triumph. And I am scolding you." Thor says, voice thick with unplaced emotions.

"It will come. In time." Loki says, smiling wryly. "Too soon, perhaps." Thor frowns at him.

"I heard you yell at father, many years ago. You told him you didn't want the Throne." He says, recalling the anguish and frustration in Loki's voice then, his carefully sculpted masks fallen awry.

"It isn't my choice to make," Loki says, calm and simple and serene in a way that Thor can't help but find himself in awe of. Always, Loki is cool-headed and calculated, solemn and smoothly spoken where Thor is like a raging storm... perhaps Loki is the forest beneath the clouds. "If it's any consolation, your ideas in regards to Jotunheimr are much like Odin's would've been... In a different time." He looks away. Thor sighs, looking upon his brother who has the weight of many universes already on his shoulders. He had grown fast, shed his jealousy and hate of Thor and instead stepped out of his shadow. Loki had shown him, once, what his past self-had been like with Thor the mighty crown prince.

They are different people.

"You are right, though!" Sif exclaims, vehement. "I think you're right! About the Frost Giants, and about Laufey, about everything!" 'Of course she does', Loki thinks bitterly. She's only been vying for Thor's attention like a lost pup since they first met. "If a few of them could penetrate the defenses of Asgard once, who's to say they won't try again. Next time with an army?!" Foolish, reckless, to egg him on. Loki sends his eyes skyward as if begging the norns for guidance.

"Yes, exactly, Sif!"

"But there's nothing we can do without defying Father." Loki urges. Thor is silent for a moment, eyeing his hammer, and Loki's breath quickens.

"No, no, no no no--! Stop there, I know that look!" Loki says, hands gesturing. "Thor! It's madness!"

"Madness? What sort of madness?" Volstagg asks, the Warriors three and Sif still huddled together mere feet from them. A merry band of idiots, the lot of them.

"Nothing!" Loki hisses. "Do not encourage him!" And promptly brings his hand up to scrub his eyes as Thor unveils his mad plan to his friends, (their friends, perhaps), and oh, there are the speeches of encouragement.

Fandral is speaking now, of course. At least he sees reason. "Thor, this isn't like a trip to Midgard, where you summon a little lightning and thunder and the mortals worship you as a god! This Jotunhiemr!" Loki passes him a grateful look.

Unfortunately, they still are convinced, and Loki sighs through his teeth, following along. As soon as they've all gone through the door he stops the nearest servant by grabbing his arm. "M-My prince?"

"My brother is very possibly going to start a war. As soon as we are gone, tell Odin." He says, softly. "And stop sniveling. I don't bite." He snaps, which may not be entirely true. Still.

"Of course, my lord. Of course."

  
***

  
Everything has gone to hel. Loki watches as Thor's armor is ripped from him. Watches the horror on Thor's face as Odin casts him out. He feels numb. "I'm going back to Jotunhiem," Loki says, his voice almost a whisper.

"You will do no such thing!" Odin bellows, and Loki takes a frantic step back, terrified of being the next son banished.

"I-I, Father, please, see reason! The--"

"The casket stays in Asgard, as do you!" His tone is thunderous and booming, very nearly ringing Loki's ears.

"Am I somehow less worthy than the child of yours who just committed an act of war?" Loki asks, eyes wide. "I sent for you! I tried to talk him out of it! I'm terribly sorry, father, but restraining him physically while he wields Mjolnir is nearly impossible and--and--" Loki breath is heavy and rasping in his chest. He cannot find enough air, and his vision swims.

"What happened?" Odin asks, rage melting away into worry.

"I--" Loki's voice cracks as his knees buckle. He cannot breathe, damn everything, he doesn't know what is happening or what to do or how to feel! His chest is too tight and Thor is gone, he isn't ready to be King and Odin will sleep soon, everything is falling apart! Laufey, as well. Gods, can he never get a break?

Heimdall was closest and prevents him from collapsing completely.

"Breath, my Prince. You need to breathe." As if he is not trying.

He collapses into a dead faint and hears Odin saying something, though he cannot make out what.

 


	2. Thor, Part II

//The timeline in the last chapter is kind of borked. Loki is 442 years younger than Thor//

 

The hearth in his room crackles and flickers, making itself the first thing he becomes aware of. Mainly because it's a cool, comfortable temperature right now. If the hearth had been going in the healers' wing he'd of been over warm. His throat is dry and his limbs feel heavy.

"It was some sort of... attack may be the best word for it." Loki hears Eir say. Her voice echoes strangely, and his eyes flutter open only for his vision to be tainted by gold. He closes them again, not wanting to interrupt his own diagnosis.

"Will he be alright?" Sigyn's steady baritone hits Loki's ears, and he sounds worried and upset enough that Loki feels guilty at not revealing his wakefulness.

"He is now, Prince Sigyn. Rest and water, that is all. And nothing overly strenuous." Eir says. He can practically hear Sigyn's face doing that weird wobbly thing it always does when he's torn. It's endearing, really.

"I'm afraid stress is all he's had for months," Sigyn tells Eir, watching the healer tweak and nudge the different calibrations on the ward.

"I will tell Odin he is not in good enough health to be King. Not yet."

"Is there anything I can do?" Sigyn presses, hand wrapping around Loki's slighter one, squeezing. Loki faintly returns the pressure on his fingers and opens his eyes, taking a slow, deep breath, stretching slightly. Both of them startle at the movement. Some of his loose curls fall into his face as he sits up.

"My prince--" Eir starts, trying to urge him to lie back down.

"I'm afraid this is no time for lying around. I have to talk with my father."

"You really should rest. Odin will still be here on the morrow, Loki." Sigyn tells him.

"No, terribly sorry but he may not be," Loki says, staggering to his feet. Sigyn sighs and smooths Loki's hair back, thoroughly blocking his exit.

"Don't strain yourself unduly?" Sigyn offers, giving him a middle ground for him to stand on in this mess. He nods curtly.

"You have my word, husband." They kiss, a chaste, mannerly thing. Neither are willing to do more in front of Eir. The man turns and scoops Jormungandr up, setting the metal snake around his shoulders. Loki conjures a simple black day robe over his tunic and leggings, feeling bare. He toes into his boots and sets off down the corridor, twisting his hands together as he often does when nervous. Who knows what the state of things is. He couldn't have been out for more than a couple of days, but still. What has Jotunhiemr done in that time? He finds Odin in his study, talking to Frigga in hushed tones.

"Father," Loki says, just the slightest bit out of breath from his rush.

"Loki. You should be resting." Odin says, surprise on his features. Loki wonders at that for a split second, knowing that he's probably the most flighty person ever in regards to healers. He wouldn't milk an injury (unlike some). Then again, his father is a king and knows littler than he should about his sons. Frigga looks at him knowingly.

"I've gotten that line twice already. Perhaps try again, this time with feeling." Loki says, pulling a smile from his mother and a vaguely amused twitch of the lips from Odin. He turns somber now, face falling. "How fares Jotunhiemr?" Loki asks him, softly.

"They seek war," Odin says, his voice just as quiet if less soft. He's always been a jaded man. Loki cannot change that.

"I must go, father. They will listen to me." He pleas, leant forward against the desk.

"And if they do not? If they decide you would be an ample piece of leverage?" He asks, something strange in his features.

"They are not as stupid as you and Thor seem to think." Loki snaps. "Or have you forgotten?" He shifts for emphasis, and Odin watches his sons skin melt into a deep cobalt, his lines dark against his flesh. His eyes are nearly unchanged, a deep emerald green with no sclera, odd in his blue face. Odin had once seen them red, but Loki had found his own eyes hard to look at at one time. A proof of his monstrous heritage. He has since grown out of such insecurities. But still, he keeps them as they are now. A reminder of an awful time in his life.

"Loki, my son, you trust me, don't you?" Odin asks as if trying to pacify him.

'No' Loki thinks viciously, but he knows it is a lie from somewhere ugly and unkind within himself, knows that it was prevalent in a different universe in a different time. "Yes," Loki says, chokes because he does, he certainly does, but that does not mean he approves of his fathers' judgment. He trusts Odin's heart is in the right place. That says nothing of his head.

"What aren't you telling me?" Odin asks, causing Loki's posture to slacken ever so slightly. He debates on telling Odin. He could certainly lie, of course he could... but...

"I want to speak to Laufey." He mutters, quiet and ashamed.

"For what?"

"I need to know why he left me there," Loki says, this time with fervor and passion in his voice. "The Jotnar are not animals, not mindless savages. Why, why would they leave me to die? I saw with my own eyes that there is no shame to runts in their culture, that the dwindling food supply made them smaller... I... there is no feasible reason for my abandonment!" He gestures, this time to the ebony horns which hide in his curling hair. "These are signs of royalty, father! If I did not have them I could certainly understand... but..." His rant cools now, and Odin is staring at him with something akin to shock and confusion, and something else Loki cannot name.

"And this is not your only reason?" Odin asks, and, at the thinly veiled hurt in Loki's expression, amends his words. "You are not selfish, Loki. Sometimes I worry you lack the proper concern for your own life, actually. But you also were quite sure Jotunhiemr would die without intervention."

"It will," Loki says, taking this turn of subject in stride. "It needs returning. I could, with a bit of studying Jotunheim's inherent magic, find a way to tie it to the realm so it could not be taken to others." He gestures as he speaks, a familiar quirk in Loki's personality.

"You... Very well, Loki. You may go to Jotunhiemr." Odin grants, eyeing him carefully. "But Heimdall will be hard pressed to pull you out, should it endanger Asgard.

"I know. I will send word to Laufey in advance." Odin nods at this and watches him all the way to the door.

"And Loki?"

"Yes, Father?" Loki says, pausing mid-stride.

"Come back to us. That is an order." Loki's shoulders tense, and he nods jerkily.

"I give you my word." However much that is worth, he is not sure.

  
When Loki strides past the Warriors Three Fandral catches his arm.

"Yes?" Loki snaps. They were at fault for pushing Thor's foolish forward, after all. The harsh twist of his lips softens as he sees Fandral's badly concealed surprise. "Apologies, Fandral. I am simply... stressed." He settles, turning to face the man. The others, Sif included, are staring at him with some sort of unified unreadable expression, and he shifts his weight as one beat, and then another passes in silence. Uncomfortable with such blatant staring, Loki lashes out. "Speak now, you dithering imbeciles! I am losing time I cannot afford to waste."

"We just wondered if you were all right..."

"We heard you fainted at the Bifrost." Hogun finishes, frowning at him. The man is quiet and dislikes him as he figures they all do, on some small degree, at least. Loki raises his brows at them.

"What, so you're worried about me and not Thor? I'm flattered, honestly, but I really must be going."

"This is why no one likes you, Loki," Sif says, venomous, striking out at him because Thor is gone and she is lost without him.

"Ah, I know, isn't it wonderful? But I really must be going, now." Loki reiterates, smiling at them and shoving past into the corridor. He arrives in his chambers and looks around at his things. He has an odd urge to take one long, good look at everything. To appreciate.

As if he won't be coming back.

He catches the gold of his left eye in the mirror, heart sinking faintly in his chest. He follows his urge, now that he's seen the sign of prophecy, taking a good, lingering look at all of his possessions. At the alchemical laboratory in the corner, at his neatly woven tapestries from all over the nine. His canopied bed and moss green carpeting. The various baubles and trinkets from Vanahiem and Alfhiem. His overflowing library, the stacks of thick leather-bound tomes on the desk.

He snatches the gilded comb he'd been gifted for his eight-hundredth name day and pushes it into his pocket dimension, confused by this pull but nonetheless following it. It was a gift from Frigga, passed down through her family for generations. He realizes, quite numbly, that he has been dreaming about this day for hundreds of years. And he still does not know what makes his past self-dread it so much.

He feels as if he's being drenched in ice water when he is next directed to secure his wedding ring and band. Something within him says it is urgent. Says he will never get them back if he doesn't. This strange anxiety mounts until he is short of breath, and he obeys with trembling fingers, leaning against his vanity with the strain Yggsdrasil always sees fit to lay on him in these times.

He wakes from the almost-trance, blinking, and then goes about gathering the supplies he'd been searching for, laying them out on his carpet and sitting cross-legged on the floor. It's easier to do these things with aids, and he's conserving his magic for--.... he isn't sure, actually. Just knows that it is infinitely important.

He closes his eyes and breathes in the smoke, shivering as Yggsdrasil pulls him in. There's a lurching tug at the top of his spine and suddenly he is not in Asgard. He's in Jotunhiem, staring out at the frozen landscape as his not-breath fogs before his face.

And then he is not.

Finding Laufey's consciousness is not hard. He uses his own blood, trecking precariously along the wrist-thin branches that is this bough of Yggsdrasil, the shimmering golden outline of the void making it look like wood, like a great, infinite tree. He feels his throat tighten. The other branches are all much thicker than his waist. Jotunhiem is still dying.

And now he finds himself in Laufey's head. There is surprise as he presses forward.

"Laufey." He says, calm as he can be.

"Asgardian." Laufey rumbles, voice like gravel and ground-down ice.

"I cannot hold this connection long. The branches are thin here." Loki tells him. Communicating between realms is not hard, but nor is it easy. And not in a realm with such a weak heart of Seidr.

"You wish to negotiate."

"In person, yes," Loki says because if it is him alone and in the flesh they will not suspect foul play, not suspect a trojan horse in the first days of a war.

"The casket or nothing. Do not waste my time. Your prince started this."

"I will be there momentarily," Loki says, feeling a small bit triumphant at the feeling of shock in Laufey's head.

"Very well, Asgardian."

  
He conjures his warmest armor with a hiss of Seidr and breaks into a heavy jog as he steps back out into the corridor. Who knows what Laufey is already planning. He has to fix this mess before it goes too far. And, he thinks absently, figure out a way to get to Midgard and give Thor a hint to the terms of his banishment. He doesn't even notice the footsteps falling into line with his own until Sigyn is already upon him.

"I'm going with you," Sigyn says, a hint of temper in his tone.

"Is that a request, Sigyn?" He looks his husband up and down. "Are you quite sure?"

"Was it not in our vows that I follow you no matter what?" Sigyn says. Loki's pace falters.

"You really would, wouldn't you?" Loki says, a bit struck by this sudden realization. And what does that say about him? He'd gladly lay down his life and limbs for Sigyn, no matter the circumstance. He loves him blindly, unconditionally. That such a thing is returned is rare.

"If you went gallivanting into Muspelheim I'd follow you right to Surtr's throne, Loki. You must know that I love you?"

"Yes... I just..." Loki finds himself without words, and isn't that happening often? His silver tongue lead and his resolve in pieces.

"Let us go, then?" Sigyn, always saving him from these odd silences.

"Yes. Lets." Loki says, feeling something wrench within him. As they exit the palace Loki tugs him to the side and kisses him. Desperate, passionate, a little bit depraved. Sigyn chuckles and returns it, deepens it, dominate it. Loki breaks away, panting, and presses the heel of his palm to Sigyn's forehead. "I'm sorry." And if his voice wobbles a little bit, and not entirely by design, it is because everything is going to fall apart and he can't stop it. Sigyn slumps against the wall, unconscious, asleep, safe.

Loki rolls his shoulders and steps into the branches.

He steps off right into the center of Utgard. Or what's left of it. "Laufey-King! I have come to negotiate the fragile peace between Asgard and Jotunhiem." He says, raising his voice over the cracking wind, which whips and bites at his face.

"Peace?" Laufey says, his guttural voice rattling Loki's ribcage. "Is that what Asgardian's call peace? You're more of a child than Odin's son. Go home, boy. Before you die of the cold."

"I am Loki Odinson, Crown Prince of Asgard," Loki files away the startled recognition on Laufey's face, "And I have come with a most gracious offer." He steps forward, snow and ice crunching beneath his boots until he stands perhaps three arms lengths from the throne. He kneels as he knows Asgardians are hard pressed to do in the face of Jotun Royalty and smiles.

Laufey stands, circles him. And then, shattering Loki's confidence, he wraps his large fingers around the Aesir's throat. He swallows thickly as the pale ivory melts away into a deep navy ichor, faster now than ever before. Laufey's intake of breath only confirms what Loki assumed about the lines on his face.

Heritage.

And the horns he touches next, sensitive in a way that makes Loki shiver at the oddity of the sensation.

Royalty.

He stares at Laufey defiantly, ivy green eyes a testament to his home realm. Emerald like Jotun eyes never are.

"You are no son of Odin." He rumbles, his voice now like falling boulders, angry not at him but at the fates.

"Not in blood, at the very least," Loki says. "My blood is yours, Laufey. At least it was until I was left for dead. As I recall, Jotnar babes cannot very well survive the cold for extended periods. Not in a blazing blizzard during a deadly war." Loki says, rising. He's nearly surprised when Laufey lets him, hand leaving his throat. He continues to stare at him with some kind of faraway expression, guilty and vaguely absent.

"Odin stole you away," Laufey says, and oh, they are similar in anger if nothing else, because Laufey is angry, a hot white rage bubbling beneath the surface, an avalanche held back by a cold wall of indifference.

"You left me to die." Loki sneers.

"I left you in the temple!" He roars, resolve cracking like the ice beneath his feet.

"You knew I wouldn't survive. Why? Because... Because I was a disappointment to your house? Twice as small as any runt I've ever laid eyes on--" He takes a harsh breath inwards. "Because you had two other sons already?"

"No!" Laufey growls. "Never."

"Why...? TELL ME!" Loki exclaims, loud and shrill to his own ears, tears freezing on his cheeks.

"Because I could not bare to look at you!" Laufey snarls. "You who has your mothers lines and color-- You who are her spitting image, size and all!" He is so loud one of the pillars crumbles, shaking the ground. Loki staggers against the shockwave, breathing harshly.

"What?" He asks, voice so quiet he thinks Laufey might not hear over the maelstrom that is Jotunhiem's weather. Laufey, looking worn from such a row, kneels so they are near the same height, and touches his face.

"Your mother was a shapeshifter from Alfhiem. You are not a runt. You are but half Jotun, the other is elven." Loki's face twists, wanting it to be a lie, wanting it to be anything but a grieving father before him. He would rather Laufey bitter and indifferent than have this softness he is displaying. "You have her eyes, even," Laufey adds, quiet and solemn. "Though I remember them being mine, once."

Three beats pass, and Loki swallows thickly, composing himself. "I am a world walker. And I see Jotunhiem's suffering. Sign the treaty once more, and when I am King the casket will be yours." Laufey's eyes spark with interest.

"That is All-Father magic." He says, an open question without the tone of one.

"When Odin picked me up, I imprinted on him and shifted to be the closest thing to him I could be, that way he would take me in," Loki explains.

  
***

  
Loki had planned to find Thor by tugging on his thread in the web of nirn. Instead he finds himself accidentally tapping the one closest to it, and is abruptly sent to the side of one very confused mortal woman. He frowns, and then coughs, choking on the sudden heat of a desert in his lungs and throat. Once he gets his bearings he manipulates his clothing to be something more suitable, grimacing at the feel of dust in his respiratory system. Gods, why here, of all places? "Who are you?!" She hisses, and Loki looks around, finding them both laid on their bellies, watching a makeshift compound of sorts. He turns his head to face her, smiling.

"My apologies. You must be close to my brother. Thank the Norns he has found friends in this mess."

"Your brother? Wait, what are you wearing? Who are you!?" She hisses, voice still lowered in fear of the people down in the crater.

"I am Loki," he says, and then belatedly, "brother of Thor. Crown Prince of Asgard." He nods to her and then stands, deciding to go the diplomatic route rather than the stealth one. Thor is certainly in there, and Loki feels the left of his face erupt into pins and needles as he approaches, knows that his eye is a molten gold color.

He can see the threads of nirn quite clearly. And one of them is changing shade.

He hears the click of some sort of firing mechanism, not nearly so sophisticated as the dark elven technology he studied one year in the ruins of Svartlhiem, but still enough to potentially bruise him. He grins as he hears the familiar creaking of a bowstring being pulled taught. "Stop! Not another step. Who are you?" The man whose strand is changing shade comes forward, with close-cut black hair and a firmly pressed suit.

"I won't interrupt you for long, good sir. I am Loki, Crown Prince of Asgard. I would like to enter your... facility, if only for a short time."

"This is a secure government facility. Leave, or we will be forced to shoot." The man says. He's calm but looking at Loki's attire like it's strange. Loki smiles at him.

"I would really rather you see reason." He says, spreading his hands. He will need to be on these humans' records as an ally. He knows this though he knows not why. Tis the way of his life, as a seer and a walker. He is much denser than most humans, could probably throw this man twenty miles into the air. But he instead eyes the archer perched near the top of the structure in some sort of swinging levy system. Most wouldn't see him, but with the threads visible he can see the mans glinting cord.

"Last warning, sir." Coulson wouldn't usually order someone shot just for trespassing, but they've just had a huge breach in security. Whoever this lunatic is, they can cover it up. Doesn't mean he likes it, just that he doesn't have any personnel on hand to escort them out. Not to mention this guy is acting like he can see Barton, even though it's way too dark for that to be possible.

Loki could talk his way in. He really could, it'd be simple. He could've masqueraded as someone else. But he needs to be put in their records as a valuable possible ally.

'They'll look, then, they'll look for the signs of something not-right' A rasping, echoing voice whispers, bouncing within the confines of his skull.

"Take the shot."

Loki hears the whir of the arrow before he sees it.

He catches it soundly.

The gunfire happens next, and he winces at a particularly hard impact. He'll have some nasty bruises, but proving a point is worth not casting a shield. The man stares at him, startled but casting a fragile mask of indifference.

"Now that we have that taken care of, I really just want to see someone you have in custody."

"I think proper introductions are in order, and some verification."

"Very well."

Loki complies to their thinly guised scans and prodding questions. He repeats his identity over and over again. Hel, he drolly gives this man, this 'Agent' his birth date and full name at least ten times. Repeats it when Coulson tries to catch him off guard, to mess up the numbers.

"And your birthdate, one more time, please?" He doesn't know if Coulson is trying to trip him up or is simply in shock, but he humors him in the name of diplomacy.

"The eve of the new year, 965 A. D. December 31st. I am one-thousand and forty-five years old. My eye color is green and I am male if you wanted that as well." He says dryly, brows raised in thinly veiled impatience. "I would like to see your prisoner, now. You are woefully out of depth if you think he's-- What? A soldier? Spy? Hitman?" These words feel strange on his tongue but seem to get through to Coulson.

"Alright, what is he, then?"

"Tread lightly with him and treat him normally. He will be out of your hair soon enough."

"Wait here." The man says as an obnoxious sound erupts from the thin sheet of metal and plastic in his pocket. Comforted that he's given the mortals the information they need.

'Eye color, give them your eye color' the pesky vision-voice whispers, a hoarse, croaking variant of his own mellifluous tenor. His dead self.

It was terrifying once. But it has saved his life before.

He focuses on the well of seidr within him, deep cavern filled to bursting, and feels Jormungadr tighten and shift as he directs the flow, stabilizing him, tying his reserves to the deep ocean of energy beneath Midgards crust.

He hides himself soundly and slips out through the door. Glancing around.

He can't help but take a go at Mjolnir on his way through. It doesn't budge, and he sets his foot onto the clay pedestal it rests on for leverage, pulling with all of his strength. His eyes bug out a bit as it lifts a good inch before slamming back down.

Not worthy enough, but certainly getting there.

 

"Brother." Loki greets when Coulson leaves. Thor's head is down, hung in defeat. He is covered in mud and newly forming bruises.

"Loki!" Exclaims Thor, looking fit to rise to his feet. "Are you here to take me home?" The hope in his face makes Loki wince.

"Nay, Thor." The downtrodden look on his face is certainly hard to see. "But you are not permanently banished. I cannot bring you back, but I can help you. I assume you tried to lift--" Loki breaks off as his face once again starts to feel like pins and needles. He shifts his weight and finds that Frigga is making a try at contacting him.

"Loki!" The projection says. Loki does not speak aloud but instead projects back.

"Mother... what is it?"

"You father has fallen into the Odinsleep, my child. You must be crowned." Loki's shoulders become wrought with tension, something Thor notices as he watches his brother with wariness, particularly focused on his golden left eye and the tang of copper and wet wood in the air from Seidr.

Loki cuts the connection with a startled outward breath. "I am truly, deeply sorry, brother. I must leave." He says, brief, worry wound tightly into his tone of voice.

"Why? Loki! Wait!" Thor catches his wrist before he can step back onto the branches and holds it tight. He is mortal but not as weak as Loki expected. Still, prying his hand away could lead to broken fingers. "What has happened? Something has happened, don't deny it, I can see it in your face, brother."

"Father has fallen into the sleep." He says gravely. "I must go." He hears the latches on the door being shifted. "This one... this one is different from the others if mothers panic is to be taken as word." He places his hand on the back of Thor's neck as his brother so often does to him, not daring to squeeze. "Mjolnir can be lifted only by those she deems worthy." The door clicks open and Coulson steps inside, eyes widening. "I trust you to figure something out," Loki says firmly, straightening and giving Agent Coulson a broad smile before stepping back onto the world tree.

Meanwhile, Frigga watches numbly as her husband sleeps beneath a golden layer of magic, holding his hand tightly. She squints at the light of her sons' travel method and smiles at him weakly.

"How is he?" Loki asks, shrugging out of his coat and tossing it onto the chest at the foot of the bed. He comes to sit opposite her, a mixed expression on his fair face. Frigga reaches over and smooths her thumb over his cheek.

"Eir is not certain when he will wake." The 'if' hangs heavy and silent in the air, Loki swallowing thickly.

"It's odd, seeing him like this. I'll never get used to it." Loki admits softly, shifting in place, uncomfortable and lead-lined, heavy with the burdens he knows will surface as soon as he takes the throne.

"I know." Frigga returns, just as softly. "You are evading the inevitable, Loki." She says his name like he's her sun and stars and moon.

The door creaks, Sigyn stepping inside lightly. He tugs on a few of Loki's black curls, frowning. "That was an awful trick you pulled, my dear."

"I needed to go alone," Loki says, frowning.

"What triggered the Odinsleep, my Lady-Queen?" Sigyn says, hand on Loki's shoulder. Loki who moves to allow Sigyn his seat and perches himself on the man's lap, entirely unperturbed by his own movements.

"He saw something. I'm not sure what... he said Loki's name." She tells him, watching Sigyn and Loki's tandem interactions. Two halves of the same whole, as always. "How has your sight been, my son? There is blackness beneath your eyes."

"I... something has been trying to reach me from somewhere deep, and far away from the nine." He admits softly. "And they have been coming very frequently. It is certainly draining, I'm not surprised that it shows." He admits, touching beneath his eye. His left, with his left hand. Honestly, he feels bone-tired and weary, but he has things to do. Things that cannot wait. Still, it makes the foreboding calls hard to shut out.

"How frequently?" Frigga asks, knowing that Loki very rarely has more than one or two in the span of a year. Sometimes a decade goes by without a single one, even.

"I've had three this day, and one during the coronation." He says, softly. Frigga's eyes widen. She has the sight as well, though her talents are kinder on her, less jarring. Perhaps because she doesn't intend to act on them. Frigga believes that the future should take its own time.

"Oh, Loki." She murmurs. "I can be reagent until he wakes, my dear. You've had such trouble, these last few days."

It is a truth he cannot dispute no matter how much he wants to. The coronation, his brothers' banishment, his talk with Laufey... he flinches as the pressure in his head grows worse, letting out a stuttering little breath and pressing his fingers to his temples. The pain is eye-watering, and when he opens them he finds his vision blurred. Kindly, no one comments on it, pretending not to notice. Sigyn does smooth a hand down his back, a comforting gesture.

 

Later, when the Warriors three and Sif come to the throne, they expect Odin or even Frigga to be sat there. Instead, Loki is in their place, pale and ram-rod straight, darkness beneath his eyes as he looks at them all. "If you come to ask for Thor's clemency, you may as well turn back now," Loki tells them, trying to be gentle with them and failing miserably. If anyone should be banished it should be them for being so weak-willed as to follow Thor's every whim.

Still, they do not listen. "What is this?" Volstagg asks, sharp and nearly cold. Loki sighs and stands summoning Gungnir.

"Have you not heard? I am now King of Asgard." Loki tells them. Sif, Hogun, and Volstagg seem suspicious, but Fandral eyes Loki's ever so slightly shaking hands and the way he favors his right leg as he stands, realizing there must be more going on than meets the eye.

"What happened to Odin?" Sif says, blunt and careless as usual. She sounds angry, and Loki raises a brow.

"In the Odin sleep." Now, Loki looks a mite more sincere as he looks away, fingers twitching in an imitation of a casting, nervous tick as it is. They've all seen it before, in a younger, less put together Loki. Fandral feels like the only one who sees Loki as he actually is right now, in the midst of the unfriendly, suspicious, callous stares. Volstagg seems to be simply worried and unsure, though. Sif's look is fit to kill. He sees him frayed at the seams, exhausted. Worried. "Mother fears he may never wake again." He continues, quietly. And then his posture is straight again, his shoulders back and no longer favoring one side over the other. His face like a porcelain mask.

"You can bring your 'urgent' matter to me," Loki says, drawls, a lilt in his tone betraying his doubt of their intentions being honest and good.

"We would ask you to lift Thor's banishment," Sif says as if it's some sort of challenge.

"My first command cannot be to undo the Allfather's last. We were very nearly on the brink of war with Jotunheim. Our people must have a sense of continuity in order to feel safe in these difficult times." He eyes them carefully. "Thor is not lost to us yet. You must hold your own, in the time being. All of us must stand together, for the good of Asgard."

"Of course." They chorus, though on the way out Fandral stops and gives him a last, lingering look. There is no malice there, and Loki wonders at it for a moment before watching him follow after the others.

"He said 'were'," Sif says, hushed and confused as they head for the lounge.

"So what?" Fandral asks, light and flippant despite lingering on Loki's strange behavior. The facade breaks and he sighs frustratedly.

"He was injured. Or ill. Have you ever seen him stand like that? Favoring right, he was practically putting all of his weight of Gungnir. He looked like he was going to keel over at the next gust of wind!" Fandral rants.

Volstagg frowns. "Isn't the left side where he does the...." Volstagg gestures bizarrely and widens his left eye.

"His visions?" Sif offers wrly, unimpressed by his silly imitation. "And to what I said earlier, he said 'were', we 'were' at the brink of war. How on earth could he have solved things so quickly?"

"Perhaps he planned it all?" Hogunn muses. "Laufey said there were traitors in the house of Odin."

"Why is it every time you choose to speak, it has to be something dark and ominous?" Fandral asks him.

"A master of magic could easily bring three Jotuns into Asgard." He says as he stands by the hearth. A few beats pass in silence as it sinks in.

"No! Surely not!" Volstagg exclaims, frowning.

"Loki's always been one for mischief, but you're talking about something else entirely," Fandral tells them all with more conviction than he'd expected he had.

"Who else could elude Heimdall's gaze with tricks of light and shadow?" Sif counters, frowning.

"Why, exactly, would he sabotage his own coronation? If anyone had motive enough to do it it would be Thor, but he doesn't have the talent."

"Sigyn does," Sif says, now frowning in confusion as well.

"But... Sigyn would be crowned as well. What would he get out of it?" Volstagg asks.

"I don't know, but we should tell the All-Mother." She murmurs, chewing her lip in thought.

"Oh, yes, that would work out splendidly, wouldn't it? 'Oh, by the way, your son by marriage probably betrayed the crown and also can you please bring Thor back?' Brilliant, Sif, truly."

"It's our duty. If any of our suspicions are right, then all of Asgard is in danger.

 

"Loki?" Sigyn asks, hands on his husbands' shoulders and ice-blue eyes watching him carefully. Loki has been picking through the web of nirn for hours, ever since the warriors left, looking for who or whatever keeps calling him. "Loki." He says, again. He feels his heart wrench, sick to his stomach and trapped within himself.

'The boy first, then the father.' A rasping crackling voice growls from the back of his head. It laughs horribly. Sigyn has half a mind to simply kill him, tears gathering in his eyes. Surely it would be a mercy in comparison to this? Quick, seamless. Painless. Then they would be together, at least.

Loki sways slightly to one side before his eyes snap open with a soft gasp. "Did you hear something just now?" Loki asks, swallowing down bitter bile. Something sinister is going on. He cannot believe that Sigyn is who stands behind him. Not when there are hands around his throat and a thin, deadly sharp blade pressed to his jugular vein. He tenses, hands coming up, stopping short as the blade digs in, a thin trickle of blood soaking into his tunic. "Sig... Sigyn what are you...?"

Sigyn is in front of him now, and his eyes are a bizarre aquamarine rather than their usual pale, icy blue. Loki's breathing is harsh and painful in his chest, and he finds his throat tightening up. "I'm sorry," Sigyn tells him, tears dampening his cheeks. Loki finds his own tears falling, a hollow place in his chest.

"You aren't Sigyn... You can't be..."

"I am," Sigyn says, smiling tremulously at him. "But I can only control my voice."

Loki's eyes flutter shut, unable to look at him, the love of his life. Instead of the blade piercing his skin, though, he feels something penetrate all his mental defenses, feels the pain of it in the very marrow of his bones. Everything goes black as he flicks them open at the sound of tearing flesh. His last sight is Sigyn running a blade across his own throat.

If he could see his own eyes, they would be a bright aquamarine.

When he awakens he finds himself lying on the rainbow bridge with Mjolnir on his chest. He groans, gasping for breath, and shoves the hammer. It relents just barely. "Thor--! Thor! What...?" He manages to shove Mjolnir off just as Thor calls it back.

And shatters the Bifrost bridge... He finds himself speechless, and numb, and everything hurts so badly-- he's drowning. Sigyn-- Sigyn is dead... He's obviously done something terrible, hasn't he? The Bifrost... the Bifrost is running non-stop. The backlash from the breaking of the bridge sends them both reeling over the edge, and at the last second Thor catches Gungnir, and Odin catches Thor by the foot. Loki's fingers feel numb and heavy as he sees nothing but Sigyn's blank, lifeless face.

"He's dead, isn't he?" Loki asks, though he already knows the answer somewhere deep inside himself. He doesn't care that the void is stretched out beneath him. Nothing matters.

"Yes, Loki," Odin says, perhaps not thinking. Not understanding the hopelessness in Loki's face, that it's the last nail in the coffin.

"Loki, no!" Thor shouts as his brother's fingers loosen.

He falls to the sound of his brother screaming in anguish.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all of the lovely comments, especially those which involve critique and enthusiasm for certain plot choices. I hope this chapter was enjoyed!
> 
> A playlist and cover fanart have been added to the top of the first chapter.


	3. Avengers, Part One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy, lovely readers! And thank for the comments, they motivate me splendidly

//According to the MCU timeline, Loki fell in 2010 and reappeared in 2012. My timeline doesn't coincide with this, for obvious reasons//

Asgard mourns the loss of their crown prince horribly. They have no body to send to Valhalla, no weapon to put on a shrine, they have nothing left of Loki except for his chambers and wing, and his memory. Sigyn had been given a warriors funeral, as well as that of a Prince, even if he had betrayed them. Loki wouldn't have stood for anything less. Frigga keeps the wedding ring, unable to help herself for hoping that somehow Loki might come back, that he'll want the ring when he does. Odin cannot bear to see Loki's wing, he hasn't been within a hundred feet of that part of the palace since Loki fell. 

Frigga is the opposite, she keeps his rooms immaculate, cleans them of blood with her own hands, dusts them. She lays on his bed and inhales the scent of sweet incense and rosehips, black tea from Alfhiem and fresh snowfall on an evergreen forest, puts a layer of magic on the room so that she cannot worry about the scent of her child fading into nothing but cloying dust and mothballs. She mourns the hardest, hugging one of the moss green pillows from his daybed to her chest and weeping most days, for no mother should have to mourn their child and their youngest at that. 

Thor refuses the throne adamently. "What if he still lives?" He would always ask, though the wobbliness in his tone betrayed his true thoughts. "I will not take what is his. Never."

The people have constructed a shrine in the town square of the city, with wildflowers and granite, dark woods and frosted rose-tinted glass. Wolfsbane and lilac litter the ground, a shock of purple against cobbled streets as lights float into the sky. The people of Asgard belay their tradition, sending the glowing orbs into the brisk night air to join the sparkling stars above despite the less than honorable death, despite the lack of a body to send off. Loki had never been keen on tradition anyways.

No one talks ill of him, not even the people of Jotunhiem. He is revered and loved and missed as he never imagined he would be. Instead of the traditional statue one of his paintings, a night sky in Niflheim, snowy forests, a meadow of frosted wildflowers and aurora lights, sparkling galaxies on a black-purple canvas is turned into a mural, painted onto a cliff face. Laufey signs a treaty and the casket is to be returned within time. When they meet Odin can tell Loki had at least gotten his talk with his birth father, for Laufey seems to be mourning as well despite the attempt on his life.

Loki is immortalized as the King who resolved a thousand year war in three days time and captured the hearts of his people in less than that.

 

***

 

When he awakes it is to being slumped against a wall, numb and tingling and horrifically cold, his fingers are blue and he assumes his toes and lips are the same, and he cannot even shiver with how doggedly tired he feels. His head nods and he sleeps.

He doesn't remember it, but every time they come for him he lashes out, snaps and sneers and breaks bones like glass. They start sending stronger guards. Guards made out of a sickening combination of metal and flesh, a strange, mottled purple in color.

He hears whispers, whispers of 'Chitauri' and 'Fighter' and 'No one has lasted this long'. One of these sickening creatures is called 'The Other', and he is the most grotesque of all. 

The guards have no sense of lust, but since the old-fashioned torture-head under boiling water, unable to breathe or choke, inhaling it and scorching his throat- has not worked they try other things. They take turns with him, passing him back and forth like some debauched toy for their pleasure. They thoroughly use and humiliate him to the point that it makes him physically ill to think about it.

Again, he awakens, and this time he is on a sleek metal table with a man without a nose staring down at him, grinning maliciously. Someone is screaming, and he vaguely realizes it is he himself who is. It hurts too much to think, but the hurt is far away, and he is underwater. He cannot breathe or move or even open his mouth. He registers absently that the man in front of him is giving him his name. 

"...Ebony Maw.... you will... great, glorious things are... He has plans...." It's as if waves are crashing over his head, a maelstrom or a tsunami and it hurts. It hurts in ways that cannot be put into words.

Eventually, he cannot even draw the air to scream. 'Ebony Maw' mutters something about him 'expiring' as if he is a piece of meat and not a living, breathing person. He's slumped against a wall again, and he hasn't any idea how much time has passed, between each punishment and just in general. He doesn't have enough seidr, not yet. He hasn't used magic because that would give him away. 

They break one of his horns. He doesn't know when his shifting slipped, only that it hurt like no pain he's ever felt before, screaming and gasping. Not all the way off but just halfway. It's worse than having glass shoved under your nails as they pry them off one by one. (At least the nails will grow back). 

They cannot take Jormungandr from him because he's as indestructible as Mjolnir, and teleports at his beck and call. Eviirmore he let them take, though it likewise can teleport. His boots are useless without his magic.

The Mad Titan's thread of nirn is a pure, bottomless black. His children's strands are a sickly grey. Loki isn't used to these dull colors, he's used to a variety of neons and pastels and bold, shimmering metallics. His own will be that same sickly grey if he does not move. Does not get out.

He doesn't want to break.

He won't stop shaking. It rattles his teeth, and he gasps shallowly as they dump freezing water on him. A kindly woman with green skin had come into his personal little hel, had stripped and scrubbed him and cleaned his clothes. He doesn't know why. "I can't help you," she says, quietly, "but at least I can give you your pride." She cups his face and he sees his green eyes reflected in her own, his blue skin and ridged lines. 

He hears Thanos' plan. Hears that he wishes to collect the infinity stones, that he wants to kill half of the universe in some mad attempt at mercy. Disgusting. 

He feels bile rise at the thought of half the threads woven into the fabric of fate being severed, pain in his head, his heart, his lungs.

When his seidr finally is enough, when his crippled reserves have healed from the damage of the void, he shakes, trembles, and staggers out of his cell. They haven't locked it in a long time. He'd been play-acting being broken. (It wasn't hard). He sways, breathing harsh and vision blurry, and sees Thanos coming out of one of the rooms. "Your more powerful than I thought, child." The man rumbles, sounding regretful. "Perhaps you will be the next of my children, once we've--" Loki keeps his distance, flashes the green woman a small, tremulous smile, and yanks on whatever cord he can.

 

Most normal people would've been woken up by Jarvis' alert, but seeing as he was Tony Stark, an insomniac genius with no idea what an indecent time to be awake is, he wasn't bothered by it. He is bothered by the unconscious man sprawled out on the beach outside of his Malibu mansion, mainly because Jarvis says that he's getting all kinds of insane energy readings off of him. The man is pale and ridiculously tall, with long black hair halfway down his back in a tangled mess and blood staining the corner of his mouth and trekking down his cheeks from the corners of his eyes like tears. He's bone-thin and has bruises under his eyes like he'd been hit repeatedly. There's a gash on the bridge of his nose and a bunch of little scratches on his face. His hands are black and blue in places. Blood is sluggishly seeping through his clothes. There's a pitch black, incredibly realistic metal snake wrapped loosely around the guys left arm, blinking big green eyes at him. 

He puts his hands on the man's shoulders and startles when the stranger starts coughing and heaving like he'd almost drowned. Problem is, he isn't nearly wet enough to have been in the water. Green eyes open to stare at him, gasping shallowly, panic and true, honest-to-god terror in his eyes. Tony is abruptly reminded of his time in Afghanistan. As the stranger chokes and goes silent, not breathing, Tony works on instinct, turning him on his side and slapping him on the back a few times. All the color drains from his face as the stranger wretches and nothing but blood comes up. 

So Tony does what he hopes he'd always do in the face of a seemingly dying stranger lying on his beach. He carries him home, flies in the best doctor he knows and gives the guy a chance. 

 

It's much, much later that the man wakes up with any sort of lucidity. Before this all it's been is screaming in his sleep, two hallucinatory episodes that Tony had been forced to handle with the suit (he's still banging the dents out of his armor) and one panic attack that had involved him holding a crying, hyperventilating man in his arms because he couldn't just do nothing. Not when he's been there. His green eyes stare blankly at the ceiling and then, scaring Tony shitless, they turn to the micro camera surveying the room. It's for securities sake, and every room has one. Then again, it shouldn't be at all visible to the naked eye. The stranger's eyes flutter closed as he sits up and swings his legs over the edge of the bed, wearing the tunic and leggings under the armor Tony had found him in. 

Tony'd washed them when the doctor stripped him for a full exam. He was under Tony's employ and sworn to secrecy, but when he'd come to him with a simple "This man isn't human, Mr. Stark. I--It's utterly unprecedented. His core temperature is only 68° and he weighs over twice as much as should be possible, given his malnourished state." Tony had immediately called up Shield's database once the doctor left, and was more than a little surprised to find a file on the man in his guest room as follows.

 

_Potential for Avengers Initiate_

_Subject #007_

_Name: Loki Odinson_

_Birthdate: 12/31/965 A. D._

_Gender: Male_

_Sex: ???_

_Height: 6' 2"_

_Weight: 525 lb (Note: Researches assume Asgardians are much denser than humans and that it attributes to their hardy nature)_

_Eye Color: Green_

_Home Base: 'Asgard', speculated to be a different planet by scientists. Claims to be Crown Prince and younger brother of #006._

_Core Temp: 79°_

_Attached Data_

 

He clicks the link with a frown, rubbing his jaw.

 

_Field Report #7689_

_Local: Puente Antiguo, New Mexico_

_Date: 6/2/10_

_Report via Agent Coulson: Two subjects were detained in the temporary facility for Unknown Object #426 on June 2nd. Subject #007 was docile as he took several bullets to the chest and face, all of which bounced off of his armor and flesh. After catching one of Agent Barton's projectiles he calmly asked to see Subject #006, name Thor. Once detained in one of the temporary holding cells he allowed us to question and scan him, but upon my leaving the cell he, according to the scientists, vanished into thin air and blacked out our scanners. He was found ten minutes later in Subject #006's cell, seemingly waited for my arrival, and then vanished._

_It should be noted that while Unknown Object #426 could not be moved by even the strongest of our agents or #006 (at the time) it moved approximately 3.4 inches under #007's hand, footage attached below._

_Footage1 , Footage2, Image_ _ 426-3 _

 

Tony had blinked and clicked the file closed before calling up Coulson personally. 

Now, Tony watches Loki stand, sway and finally get his footing. The god looks around frantically for a second before settling, his eyes on the metal, totally sentient snake Tony had found wrapped around his neck. He jogs down to the guest suite and knocks out of courtesy and warning more than anything before cracking the door open and stepping inside. Loki is, again, ridiculously tall in Tony's opinion. He's too thin as well, even by alien standards, weighing in at about 300 lb. His clothes are baggy and his hair is long and well washed, hanging in loose curls around his shoulders and face, halfway down his back. Tony can't help but think it looked better in the picture on his file, just past his shoulders. "Back with us, Bambi?" He asks, even though he doesn't know this person at all. He knows what he read in a file.

"...I am. I think." He whispers, looking down at his hands. He still feels Sigyn's blood on his hands, even though that makes no sense at all. He swallows thickly. "Where am I?" He asks, softly. 

"You're in Malibu, uh, on Earth," Tony says, fumbling because he's talking to an alien, a real life, in the flesh alien, and said Alien looks like he was just rescued from being a war prisoner. God. 

"Ah. Midgard, then. Thank you...." He trails off expectantly, and he feels like he's underwater again, but this time differently. Not like he's drowning but like everything's far away and the shore is nowhere in sight. 

"I'm Tony Stark." He says, holding out his hand. Loki swallows stares at it for a moment before hesitantly taking it, shaking firmly but not too firmly. 

"Loki Odinson." He murmurs. Is he still in shock? His magic says otherwise, but he can't... he doesn't know how to be anything but numb and distant. It's terrifying. Tears gather in his eyes for no foreseeable reason and he shudders, then suddenly there are arms around him, and they are mortal but he is fragile and so they feel strong and safe all the same. He rests his head on this man, this Anthony's shoulder, and sobs weakly because he doesn't know what to do now. He cannot go home, Titan was so far away it drained him so steadfastly that is once again crippled, and it hurts so much to be without his magic and his family... Why can't Heimdall see him? Did they give up? Did they not care in the first place? Glad to be rid of the Ergi joke of a Crown Prince?

"Come on, I'll make you something to drink and we can get things sorted out," Tony says, not used to hugging, or touching people in general, but he really couldn't help it. This guy looks like someone just drop-kicked his dog into an ocean, and fuck if he doesn't understand the lost look in those emerald green eyes. He's a philanthropist and he can't help it. Loki nods and follows him, padding through the house. The mortal, irritatingly, throws a soft, thick blanket around his shoulders and sets a mug of steaming something in front of him.

"Would have got you coffee but I didn't think it would help with the shakes." Stark says, and Loki blinks up at him, not understanding what 'coffee' is but suddenly self-conscious about the shaking and unable to stop. He tugs the blanket closer and he feels ridiculous but it's warm and soft and he lets out a stuttering sigh, screwing his eyes shut, trying to keep his teeth from chattering.  

"Drink, it'll help." The scrape of the mug against the table somehow manages to ground him, and he takes it up, sipping. "It's tea." Tony says, recalling Loki's blank stare at the word 'coffee'. Loki nods curtly.

"I know what tea is, Stark." He says, none too kindly, but Tony is feeling patient and he just hums. 

"There's a man coming here soon that you should know from about a year ago. His name's Agent Coulson. Ring any bells?"

"A year ago?" Loki parrots, stopping mid-sip. 

"Well, really it was June of last year, so a little bit more than that."

"What is the date?" Loki asks, sounding a little bit too hollow for Tony's liking.

"It's December 15th, 2011," Tony says, slowly, carefully. Just as he is about to ask why Loki doesn't know what year it is the elevator pings and out steps Agent Coulson. Loki tenses, flinching at his own reaction to someone simply entering a room, and forces his eyes open. 

"Hello, Mr. Odinson. Agent Coulson, I believe we've met before." He says, putting out his hand. His cheerful professionalism starts to waver as he takes in the sight of the man before him, looking small and terrified. So different from the strong, literal god of a year and a half ago. 

"Yes, hello." Loki rasps, shaking his hand cautiously, looking around like he's ready to flee at any moment. Coulson, who has seen his fair share of Agents trying to avoid a mandatory leave, immediately notices the shaking of his fingers and the still healing cuts and bruises, the scar peeking out of Loki's collar. His training kicks in immediately.

"I know it's hard, but can you tell me what happened? None of it leaves this room." He says, sitting down a good foot from Loki on the same couch, facing him. Loki lets out a stuttering, dry sob and looks to Tony, who swallows thickly and nods in encouragement. And so down comes the floodgates. All of it comes pouring out. Thor's banishment, Sigyn's betrayal, his letting go, and then more recent wounds start to bleed, like prying open an old gash, and he tells them of Thanos and The Other and Ebony Maw, of the scar on his throat-- the scar that is there because Ebony Maw reached into his mind and ripped open his old, wrongly healing scars, of Sigyn and his death and then, cruely, sickeningly, decided that such a moment should forever be engraved in Loki's skin. 

He's shaking hard, sobbing and crumpling in onto himself when he's finished and is startled by the gentle hand on his shoulder, professional and yet eternally kind, and the embrace that follows. He feels weak and childish and so, so tired. 

He doesn't notice the exchanged glances, the way Stark looks about ready to vomit at some of the things Loki admits to having endured. He doesn't notice the conversation happening over his head as he, like a man half drowned, chokes in one long breath and leans away from the agent, unable to stand being so dreadfully weak and yet much too weak to stop being weak. A vicious cycle indeed. 

He does hear Stark say with admirable conviction that Loki has a place here if nowhere else. "I've been there, Coulson. And I'm not going to let him live the rest of his life in a cold steel bunker because you don't know what to do with him. This place can be his home until he can get back to his own."

"Agent Romanoff will be checking up on it. Frequently." Coulson says, voice sharp and no-nonsense. "And we need to set some ground rules."

Loki is able to breathe easier as they explain to him human culture and laws. Tony reassures him that anything he needs he can have, and Loki tries to protest, tries to deny such blatant generosity but Tony resolves it easily. "You can help me, then. Apparently, you're the smartest guy around where you're from. Seriously, I don't mind. I have so much money I don't know what to do with it."

Tony takes him to his personal tailor to get him clothes, 'just until you get your mojo back' he'd said. Loki still thinks Midgardian's are utterly bizarre, but he tries to fit into it. A coat like the one he came here in (almost, it isn't leather), along with some simple suits are all he requests, but Tony adds things, puts subtle golden trim on his black suit and makes the dark green one velvet.

He also gets him a haircut, and he was right, it does look better just below his collarbones.

 

***

 

Tony doesn't at all understand the man he's taken in. Loki is complex in ways that humans simply aren't. He marvels at the simple things, is unsurprised and snide at the complexities and intricacy of Tony's coding and machinery but starstruck by the piano downstairs and the sheer amount and diversity of earth music. He falls in love with things like the Phantom of the Opera and Transsiberian Orchestra, cries openly when Tony builds him a library and fills it with books and gives him a grimace of a smile when Tony hands him a Stark Phone. He delights in the Galas and PR events Tony takes him to but hates large crowds.  

It's raining when Tony takes the god window shopping, knowing that 1) Loki loves the rain and 2) fewer people means fewer triggers for Loki's various range of panic attacks. He doesn't expect for Loki to linger in front of a children's clothing shop, the window full of baby blues and powder pinks. He can't help but be a little surprised when Loki starts crying. Hardly visible, silent tears. He can't help but think Loki cries a lot, or maybe it's just more noticeable than other things, and it makes them seem frequent. He also can't help but think that Loki wasn't the type of guy to cry, before this. He looks more like a grit your teeth and bear it sort of person. 

Loki wipes his face and continues down the sidewalk, moment forgotten, and Tony also, very much can't help seeing Loki as something startlingly beautiful in this world of dull, easily pleased people, a 10000 piece all-white puzzle in a room full of colorful 100 piece ones. An impossible mystery, an enigma not meant to be solved. 

His dark green coat is draped around his shoulders along with his metal snake, his suit the dark green velvet and his eyes sparkling faintly with mischief as he tugs Tony's wrist, -and Tony, Tony who never ever in a million years likes to be touched- simply laughs and follows him obediently into a shop full of flowers and herbs and crystal nonsense that Tony wouldn't pay the time of day to otherwise. Loki's shoulders visibly slacken at the smell of rosehips and bitter-sweet incense, smiling the first true smile he ever has at Tony. 

They come home with flower bulbs that will eventually turn into lavender and wolfsbane, with tea leaves and roses to be planted. Tony goes along with it, watching startledly as Loki casts, for the first time in over a year. He puts an ambient spell on the flowers and Tony watches them grow out of the ground, in awe of this man before him, and Loki simply laughs, a smooth, silky tenor that has something sugar sweet and teasing in it. It's December and there are perfectly healthy roses in his garden. Of course, it's about 48°, but still. They're supposed to have a cold winter.

A few days later Tony explains Christmas to Loki, who tilts his head and says "We have Yule Time, in Asgard. Celebration of the winter solstice and the coming of a new year." Still, Tony gets him a Pipe Organ for Christmas, and it sounds ridiculous in his head and on paper, but Loki's expression of gratitude was worth it. He may also have procured a Stradivarius violin for Loki's personal use. 

Things aren't great, he can tell, but they're better. 

Loki's birthday comes and passes with Tony giving him full access to the lab and Jarvis. And though it isn't a violin from 1712 it's even more valuable to Loki. There aren't very many people Tony trusts enough to give access to the lab and the suits. Not since Obadiah. 

 

 

"Tony Edward Stark, get back here right this instant!" Pepper exclaims, angry-mother-mode through and through. 

"Pepper, really, a press conference isn't going to fix this." The press is starting to speculate that he and Loki are together-together, and apparently being gay as well as being ironman is a little bit too much for them to handle. Even though he isn't with Loki at all. He can fantasize, certainly, but the wedding rings forever hanging around Loki's neck on a woven golden chain are always a slap to the face reminder that it just isn't possible. Loki had lost the love of his life less than a year ago. 

"I agree with Pepper." Says Natasha bluntly as she strides into the room. Music wafts in through the swinging door before it cuts off with the shutting of it. 

"What are you doing here? Isn't my house supposed to be, oh, I don't know, private?" Tony asks, feeling genuinely irritated and unable to cope with anything other than sarcasm. Natasha doesn't reply, focused on pouring two glasses of sparkling cider. 

"Mr. Odinson requested that she be let in, Sir," Jarvis reports. It's late spring, and Jarvis has become thoroughly wrapped around Loki's little finger. He sighs heavily. 

"Alright, alright! But how, exactly, am I supposed to explain that I'm not fucking him? The press is kind of hard to convince on anything." 

"Shield will take care of it. If you join up." She says, smiling. Tony had been reevaluated as a potential candidate, and the Avengers initiative officially un-scrapped. Mainly because Tony is able to work so well with Loki. In fact, Loki had been pulling strings behind the scenes for Tony during most of his more recent Iron Man escapades. Mainly because he's a strategic genius who can see things twenty moves ahead, and Tony, being a split-second decision sort of guy, finds it useful.

"I'll join your super secret boy band the same day you manage to help Loki fix his magic." Tony snaps because despite Shield's help (and Jane Fosters budding friendship with Loki) no-one can come up with a reason for why Loki's powers are so mangled. He can do magic, yes, and he can world walk and prophesize. But it comes at a great physical sacrifice, leaving him drained and in immense amounts of pain.

"Loki doesn't have a problem with joining. He says it would be good for you, even." Natasha says as she picks up the two ciders and somehow managing to also grab a couple of apples on her way out. She smartly doesn't comment on Loki's current shortcomings, because shield wanted a test of his abilities and he'd leveled an entire fucking complex. Of course, it also managed to put him in the Med Bay, but he'd gone and obliterated the abandoned building they'd been using in one fell swoop. Three stories of concrete and steel were absolutely vaporized, and it had left a crater the size of a football field.

She was, quite honestly, a little bit concerned about how much power Loki had, seeing as he'd told them he could only, as of now, reach about half of his abilities without risking serious and perhaps fatal damage. She smiles at Pepper as the CEO holds the door open, and the "Cello Song" playing in the next room floods in through the open door. Stark follows her and Pepper follows him. 

"Loki, is it okay with ice? I know you like it warm but still, we didn't have any of the mead you like, so." She says, pushing forward a calm mask of indifference as Stark fumes, looking like a toddler about to stomp his foot. She hands him a glass once he's put his Cello down, and the god smiles at her. 

"It's fine. Honestly what you people describe as cold is on the warm side for me anyhow." He admits, taking his glass and leaning back against the couch to greet Pepper and, "Are you quite alright, Anthony?" Loki asks him as if he doesn't know exactly whats going on, smug bastard that he is.

"You're alright with the Avengers Initiative?" Tony asks, sounding rather sour. Loki winces and sets down his drink, having been just at the end of his sip. 

"You told him?" Loki asks Natasha, both disapproving and exasperated at once.

"He attacked me."

"Verbally?" Loki asks dryly, looking between the two of them. "Really, oh, to hel with it." He stands, rubbing his face and settling into the familiar, rhythmic pacing he always does when he's thinking too much. "Yes. I think you'd be good with the Initiative. It would envoke your plays-nice-with-others side. You know," he's gesturing and the girls are smirking because it's always been a running joke that he's the embodiment of a crescendo, this right here must be their proof, "the part of you that listens to me on the comm system twice a week." He halts in his pacing, sighing heavily, and as if it's some sort of great task, he says, "If you could help me, you can help others. You would be a brilliant leader because you're honest and real and an absolute menace when you need to be." 

"I'll think on it." Tony says as he catches Natasha saying "See, crescendo!" and causing both of them to start giggling. "And you two!" He points at them both overdramatically, "just because he's weirdly into music does not mean he's the god of it, okay?" They all know, somewhere far away, that Loki's musical inclination is a coping mechanism he desperately needed, but right now they can laugh themselves to tears like everythings right as rain. They both erupt into fresh, eye-watering laughter at that, and Tony can't help grinning a little at the comical relief he's provided for such a heavy, emotional moment. Gotcha. Loki sniggers. 

"You mortals are utterly exhausting, you know that, do you not?" He asks the three of them, feigning melodramaticism as he collapses onto the couch with his arm over his eyes, Jormungandr flicking his tongue from where he's perched at the back of it. That does it, Natasha is hitting her knee and Pepper is as red as her hair, both by laughter and because Loki's head is in her lap, black hair strewn about, peeking up at her with that mischievous grin he always has on standby. She shoves his shoulder and he loses his balance on the couch, rolling off of it with a grunted little "oof!" and a startled laugh.

"Whoa whoa whoa, why was she able to move you? You weigh like, four hundred pounds!" Tony asks amidst his laughter, scientific curiosity getting the best of him. Loki glares up at him from the floor and then grins cockily.

"What, you, god of machines has not figured out how to lower molecular density in a concentrated area yet? Poor man. Still operating out of the iron age." Loki says, always a performer at heart. See, snarky at all of his awesome technology. Unacceptable. They bicker for a while longer as both women calm down some, Loki pulling himself back onto the couch and sipping his cider. 

"Wait, doesn't that make you more fragile, too?" Natasha asks, frowning. 

"It does. And I can lift less weight this way, but it's fairly simple to fix it as well." He explains with a smile. "More to the point, it makes me less worried about hurting any of you."

 

***

 

Months later, in the Atlantic ocean, Tony fires up his suits laser-cutter, running it through the pipeline transport. When its successfully cut through he activates the boots and comes rocketing out of the ocean. "We're good on this end. Rest is up to you." Tony says, grinning at the live feed that comes up. 

"You've disconnected the transition lines, then?" Loki asks from his place on the couch in Stark Tower, wearing black Asgard-esque leggings and a moss green tunic with golden accents.

"Are we off the grid?" Pepper cuts in, coming into the frame in her pale whitish pink suit.

"Stark Tower is about to become a beacon of self-sustaining clean energy." He says, sounding just a bit manic excited. 

"Wow. So maybe our reactor takes over and it actually works?" Pepper says, feeling maybe a little more excited than skeptical.

"I assume." Loki says dryly at the same time that Tony says "Light her up." Pepper and Loki hit the command button together, grinning. 

"How does it look?" Loki asks, a bit too eager. Tony chuckles, watching Stark tower light up before his eyes.

"Like Christmas, but with more me." He snarks, and Loki rolls his eyes good-naturedly, Pepper's lips twisting in a wry smile.

"Gotta go wider on the public awareness campaign. You need to do some press. I can do some more tomorrow. I'm working on the zoning for the next billboards." She rattles off, content with her always-in-business-mode personality flaw. 

"Have I mentioned that I like you?" Loki quips, rewarded by a good spirited punch to the arm. He laughs softly.

"Guys, you're killing me. Remember? Enjoy the moment."

"Darling, come here and say that." Loki purrs, grinning. 

"Beat me to it, sly bastard," Pepper says, pouring her friend more wine as Tony lands and the rings come out of the floor, dramatically removing his armor. 

"I don't know what I see in you. Flashy, egotistical, narcissistic..." Loki trails off as he's swirling his drink in his cup, sprawled gracefully on the couch. Tony snorts at the display. 

"Pot and kettle." He sing songs, grinning at Loki's scrunched nose and the rude gesture.

"Sir, Agent Coulson of SHIELD is on the line," Jarvis says from the ceiling. Loki raises a brow.

"I'm not in. I'm actually out." He says, striding down the platform. 

"Sir, I'm afraid he's insisting."

"Close the line, Jarvis. I got a date." He says, a bounce in his step and a quirky grin on his face.

"Levels are holding steady... I think." Pepper says, staring at the Monitors. Loki comes up beside her. 

"Indeed they are." He flicks and swipes some things on the holograph. They all have their areas, Tony's being, well... most of it. Fieldwork. Pepper handles the outside world and finances and Loki handles the data and read outs. It's a well-flowing dynamic.

"Of course they are, I was directly involved. Which brings me to my next question: how does it feel to be a genius?" He says, watching the both of them. Loki hands him a glass with a broad grin. The chain around his neck clinks and Tony tries to ignore it. They've been doing good. Loki still cries at a certain color blue, still has panic attacks at places, anxiety at others, but his grieving phase was relatively short. He's trying. He's had two years to do so, and he's been adamant on pushing through and trying...this. Them. Together. Pepper and he had just been friends all the way back to the whole poisoning incident, so it was really all fine. No bad blood. "The both of you." He adds, belatedly. Neither seems to mind.

"Well, ha, I really wouldn't know now, would I?" Pepper says with a smile. "You two, on the other hand..."

"What do you mean? All this came from you." Tony says, obviously sucking up lest he be put in the doghouse. 

"No. All this came from that." She says, tapping his arc reactor. "And a bit of it from your boyfriends magic hands." She adds dryly. 

"Give yourself some credit, please. Stark Tower is your baby. Give yourself... twelve percent of the credit." Loki sputters a bit, choking on his champagne. 

"Oh _dear_." He murmurs, looking between them. 

"Twelve percent?" 

"An argument can be made for fifteen." He says, and Loki pinches his side on his way back to the couch, shaking his head fondly.

"Twelve percent? For my baby?"

"Well, I did do all the heavy lifting. Literally, I lifted the heavy things. And sorry, but the security snafu? That was on you." Tony says, pointing. 

"Ooooh."

"Digging your own grave, dear," Loki calls. He is thoroughly ignored, stretches back onto the couch, knowing from experience that this is going to escalate.

"My private elevator--"

"You mean **our**  elevator?" She asks, gesturing in a triangular motion. Really, it's like they're the ones in a relationship sometimes. It's entertaining, though, and Loki throws back his champagne.

"...was teeming with sweaty workmen. I'm going to pay for that comment about percentages in some subtle way later, aren't I?"

"Oh yes." Loki pipes up, and Tony glances at him.

"Not gonna be subtle." She says. 

"I'll tell you what. Next building's gonna say 'Potts' on the tower." He promises, grinning.

"On the lease." She amends dryly.

"...Call your mom, can you bunk over?" He snarks.

"Sir, the telephone. I'm afraid my protocols are being overwritten." Jarvis says.

"Stark, we need to talk," Phil says. Tony picks up his phone. "There's a situation. And I think it involves someone Loki ran into half a year ago." Tony pales, and out of his peripheral he sees all the color leaving Loki's face, his breath stopped in his chest. 

"That isn't fucking funny." 

"It wasn't a joke," Phil says, stepping out of the elevator. "The Other is here, and he has the tesseract."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This movie will probably span over three chapters, given that I addressed so much pre-movie stuff.


End file.
